Science Building

The design provides for a major new science instructional building connecting to an existing science building in the center of a built out, dense campus. The site and building spaces are planned to foster community and interdisciplinary collaboration. The building massing and site design allow the campus landscape to continue through the first floor, creating a large sheltered gathering/study space adjacent to meeting and collaboration rooms. Significant grade changes in the small site are designed to provide terraces, a biopond research area, and memorial tree garden. Laboratories are placed on the second floor to allow for direct lab exhaust through the roof to limit chase areas and simplify mechanical systems. The roof includes an instructional greenhouse and an observatory instructional area, with specially designed structure for vibration resistance and telescope storage.

Continuous operation of adjacent science building during construction
Biology, chemistry, physics, geology labs, greenhouse, astronomy telescope stations
Flexible, modular labs with common prep space
Exterior instruction area, learning landscape, outdoor study
Integrated communal space for faculty, employees, students
Integrated into existing campus including connections to all primary paths
Faculty and staff work spaces
Lecture & lab spaces incorporate state of the art infrastructure for teaching
Sustainable Design LEED Silver

Photo credit: Bill Timmerman | Cristian Costea

Student Portal Complex

The Student Portal Complex project is comprised of six existing building renovations, two new building constructions, and a series of outdoor campus improvements. The goals of the project includes bringing together dispersed student services into one identifiable place, creating a new campus entry for visitors and new students, and establishing outdoor areas that foster collaboration amongst the campus population.

Before the implementation of the project goals, the opaqueness of the 1960s battered masonry walls lacked the spatial transparency of today’s socially connected and highly collaborative campus life. Adding to the challenge of bringing about a cohesive and identifiable social place, the budgetary constraints required all buildings to remain intact–as much as possible. The complexity of the project was compounded by the need for existing student services to remain operational throughout the construction, requiring phasing strategy/implementation evaluation and the orchestration of temporary student service relocations. In addition to the internal campus improvements, a large parking lot located at the eastern edge of campus was designated to become the new entry point for students enrolling for their first college class.

The design response to the challenges of the existing campus and the extent of impact on campus life came about from an unlikely source. Within the sparsely vegetated courtyard formed by the accumulation of buildings over decades, the new Lounge emerged to become the social hub for campus life with direct connection to all student services. In a conscious effort to maintain the historical continuity of the masonry walls, the perimeter of the Lounge consists of perforated metal fins that never directly engage the existing masonry walls, but instead provide a new layer that simultaneously allows slivers of the surrounding buildings to inform the spatial reading as well as protect the interior from the intensity of Sonoran sunlight; all the while, the gentle swell of the curved ceiling adds volume the lightness of the roof hovering over the previously disused courtyard.

Echoing the lightness of the Lounge roof form, the new Enrollment Center similarly creates space below, the difference being, the unobstructed and horizontal persistence of a parking lot the size of a football stadium. Here, the unity was not so much about buildings within the campus, but rather the unity of an entire campus as a representation of the portal through which the promise of greater erudition awaits. The introduction of a new landscape which include a drop-off/pick-up zone and land area dedicated to framing the new Enrollment center, transforms the banality of the relentless parking lot into a place with a clear focus and attention. Visitor and students are encouraged by the belly of the tapered roof form to transition from the shaded outdoor to the cool interior where a brilliant line of orange delineates the edge where sky begins. Emanating from the Enrollment Center, new paths, landscapes, and gathering places trace the campus walks to connect to surrounding buildings and outdoor quads.

Photo Credit: Bill Timmerman

Life Science Building

The design features state of the art instructional facilities for science labs and classrooms, facilitating inter and extra-departmental collaboration between faculty, staff and students throughout the building and site. A series of exterior collaboration pods under the large portico roof provide collaboration and gathering spaces with chalkboards and power, open to all on campus. The primary roof is designed to collect rainwater, which is directed to two vertical rain towers that connect into a large underground cistern that can be used for all irrigation. The building optimizes use of the highly constrained site, providing a main exterior bridge/path that connects the existing buildings on the north to the proposed campus expansion to the south, with a 5 foot grade differential. The building ‘L’ shape is derived from the difficult triangular site and provides all primary circulation to be open to the adjacent campus paths, and zoning of lab support space contiguous to every lab. The entire site design is a learning landscape, with paths through instructional planting zones and an exterior instructional area.

Sustainable design LEED Silver equivalent using rainwater harvesting